Tinamotinæ, 2 genera.— Calodromas (1 sp.), La Plata and Patagonia; Tinamotis (1 sp.), Andes of Peru and Bolivia.
General Remarks on the Distribution of Gallinæ.
There are about 400 known species of Gallinaceous birds grouped into 76 genera, of which no less than 65 are each restricted to a single region. The Tetraonidæ are the only cosmopolitan family, and even these do not extend into Temperate South America, and are very poorly represented in Australia. The Cracidæ and Tinamidæ are strictly Neotropical, the Megapodiidæ almost as strictly Australian. There remains the extensive family of the Phasianidæ, which offers some interesting facts. We have first the well-marked sub-families of the Numidinæ and Meleagrinæ, confined to the Ethiopian and Nearctic regions respectively, and we find the remaining five sub-families, comprising about 60 species, many of them the most magnificent of known birds, spread over the Oriental and the south-eastern portion of the Palæarctic regions. This restriction is remarkable, since there is no apparent cause in climate or vegetation why pheasants should not be found wild throughout southern Europe, as they were during late Tertiary and Post-Tertiary times. We have also to notice the remarkable absence of the Pheasant tribe from Hindostan and Ceylon, where the peacock and jungle-fowl are their sole representatives. These two forms also alone extend to Java, whereas in the adjacent islands of Borneo and Sumatra we have Argusianus, Polyplectron, and Euplocamus. The common jungle-fowl (the origin of our domestic poultry) is the only species which enters the Australian region as far as Celebes and Timor, and another species (Gallus æneus) as far as Flores, and it is not improbable that these may have been introduced by man and become wild.
We have very little knowledge of the extinct forms of Gallinæ, but what we have assures us of their high antiquity, since we find such distinct groups as the jungle-fowl, partridges, and Pterocles, represented in Europe in the Miocene period; while the Turkey, then as now, appears to have been a special American type.
Order VI.—OPISTHOCOMI.
Family 93.—OPISTHOCOMIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)
| General Distribution. | |||||
 | |||||
| Neotropical Sub-regions. | Nearctic Sub-regions. | Palæarctic Sub-regions. | Ethiopian Sub-regions. | Oriental Sub-regions. | Australian Sub-regions. |
| — 2 — — | — — — — | — — — — | — — — — | — — — — | — — — — |
The Hoazin (Opisthocomus cristatus) is the sole representative of this family and of the order Opisthocomi. It inhabits the eastern side of Equatorial America in Guiana and the Lower Amazon; and at Pará is called "Cigana" or gipsy. It is a large, brown, long-legged, weakly-formed and loosely-crested bird, having such anomalies of structure that it is impossible to class it along with any other family. It is one of those survivors, which tell us of extinct groups, of whose past existence we should otherwise, perhaps, remain for ever ignorant.
Order VII.—ACCIPITRES.
Family 94.—VULTURIDÆ. (10 Genera, 25 Species.)